Pushing the boundaries of innovation, HTC VIVE today unveils the VIVE Full Face Tracker.
The VIVE Full Face Tracker is a new accessory for all-in-one headset, the VIVE XR Elite. Pushing the boundaries of innovation, the plug-and-play tracker brings exceptional immersion to VR, allowing developers to capture natural, subtle facial expressions for virtual environments and games.
From enabling more natural and realistic avatars to opening up exciting possibilities for animators, researchers, healthcare professionals and more, the new tracker captures up to 38 blend shapes across the lips, teeth, tongue, cheeks, nose, and chin at a 60 Hz tracking rate — meaning that even subtle facial expressions are accurately portrayed and spoken words are able to match facial expressions in real-time.
The VIVE Full Face Tracker is a plug-and-play module that brings face and mouth tracking to VIVE XR Elite through a simple USB-C connection. It allows users to emote naturally in VR, capturing up to 38 blend shapes across the lips, teeth, tongue, cheeks, nose, and chin at a 60 Hz tracking rate. This means that even subtle facial expressions are accurately portrayed, and spoken words match facial expressions in real-time.
“This is great for everything from having more natural and realistic avatars, through to helping animators, researchers, training scenarios, healthcare and so much more. In the past we’ve also seen amazing ways to use eye and face tracking as inputs for games and other experiences,” said Shen Ye, Global Head of Product at HTC VIVE. “We’ve built this using our VIVE Wave platform, with support for OpenXR too, so developing for it is really easy. Because of this, anything built for the VIVE Focus 3’s eye and face tracking will work with the new VIVE Full Face Tracker.”
With built-in infrared LEDs, VIVE Full Face Tracker can accurately track eye movements at 120 frames per second. It also sports an innovative auto-calibration feature: the tracker detects your interpupillary distance (IPD) and automatically calibrates the headset for viewing comfort and clarity. This feature allows multiple users to share the same headset without having to manually reset the IPD slider every time.
Read what Bucks thought of the HTC VIVE Headset here.
